


The Adventures of Carter and Lara

by Catheeso



Category: CJMind
Genre: Angels, Angst, Carter’s a Little Shit, Carter’s a Nerd, Carter’s a mess, Cursed objects, Demons, Dogs, Gardening, Gen, I’ll add more tags in the future, Lara’s a mother hen, Monsters, Mythology - Freeform, Nightmares, No Slash, Shenanigans, Supernatural - Freeform, Swearing, Trans Characters, Transphobia, heavily influenced by Supernatural, just two people being friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23138917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catheeso/pseuds/Catheeso
Summary: Carter’s a demon. Lara’s an angel. They two of them make unlikely friends and even more unlikely hunters. Follow them as they slay monsters and try to function as normal people.It’s a lot harder than they thought it would be.
Relationships: Carter & Lara
Kudos: 1





	1. Beheading the Vampires

**Author's Note:**

> Starting off strong with a chapter focused on action!

Lara had long since stopped calling the angels who moped around Heaven her family. They were sad, mean, and above all, boring. Sure, Carter called her boring sometimes when she was trying to not get him killed, but it isn’t the boring that her ‘siblings’ up in Heaven were.

They didn’t answer prayers. They didn’t perform miracles. They didn’t greet new souls or strike down people who should’ve died for their crimes a long time ago. They just sat in the clouds, playing cards.

Lara might not have as much energy as Carter did (the little demon always running around like he was on some kind of sugar-high), but she knew that playing Go Fish for thousands of years was not what they were supposed to be doing.

Which was why she left, just like her brother Gabriel before her. Oh, they knew she was still alive, she just left and never returned. Her ‘family’ didn’t care and neither did she.

Down on Earth, she met Carter who was just what she needed at the time. He was adventurous but also cautious. Hyperactive but he also knew when to chill out. Full of self doubt but also crippling narcissistic. He made it feel like she had a little brother again.

He made it feel like she had a brother again. But he was a demon. She had strayed away from him at first, it was in her DNA to stay away from the impure.

But he was a little shit who was determined to become friends with her so she resigned herself to stay with him until he could figure out how to survive on his own.

Which turned out to be never considering that they have been with each other for centuries and she didn’t plan on leaving anytime soon and neither did he. 

The perfect blend of demon and human in her opinion.

Living together had been bearable until he met some humans who called themselves ‘hunters’ and it was downhill from there. 

Now, she was sitting in their personal library reading books on how to kill vampires while Carter ate cold french fries.

“I don’t understand how you can eat those,” she commented, her nose scrunching up in disgust. She had tried back in 1989 and had immediately spat it out. 

“I’m not about to waste french fries, cold or not. Do I look like a monster?”

“You could heat them up in the microwave.”

“And have them get soggy? No thanks!”

Lara grimaced, “they’re already soggy.”

Carter stuck out his tongue and continued eating the fries from Hell. 

“Anyways, garlic seems to repel them and silver through the heart always does the trick, but beheading is the most common form to get rid of them.” Lara closed the book with a satisfying thud. 

Carter blinked.

“Beheading? You mean we’re gonna snip snip snip their heads off? Wouldn’t that just make a bunch of blood-sucking Headless Horsemen?” 

“Snip snip snip their heads off?” Lara asked, a smile tugging at her lips.

“Y’know! Like - like scissors. Gonna chop ‘em right of with the blades of the world’s deadliest weapon.”

Lara fought back a snicker as she watched Carter make a scissor chopping motion.

“Anyways, you didn’t answer my question.”

“Which was?”

“That you’re wrong and a bunch of heads trying to suck the blood out of my ankles is not how I wanna spend the evening.”

“That’s not a question, that’s a statement.”

“I’d like to keep the blood in my ankles!” Carter said frantically.

Lara rolled her eyes, “trust me on this.”

“Should we get an ax?” Carter asked, gathering up the trash from him eating.

“Our blades should work.” Lara got out of her chair and stretched, before snapping her fingers and having the books teleported back to their spots on the shelves. 

Carter put his trash in the trashcan and then closely examined his blade, turning it over in his hand.

“Doesn’t look like it was made for decapitation,” He mused.

“Well, we weren’t made to hunt vampires,” Lara retorted, grabbing her own blade.

Carter frowned a little bit before shaking his head and grinning. He grabbed Lara by the crook of her arm and started skipping to the door.

“We’re off to kill the vampires! The wonderful vamps of Oz!” He sang before stopping. “I don’t know how the rest of the song goes.”

Lara snorted and shook her head.

~~~

“I thought you said beheading worked!” Carter cried as he furiously stomped on the head of a vampire trying to chew on his shoe. 

“That’s what I read!” Lara shouted back, dodging the swinging fist coming at her from a headless body.

“Always double check your sources, Lara!!” Carter screamed, scrambling away from the body of the headless vamp that was trying to chew through his jeans. 

Lara managed to get in a lucky stab to the heart with her blade but she was quickly surrounded once more by angry vampires, both headless and not. She darted away from the gnashing teeth of a body-less head as it was literally thrown at her, stabbing another vampire through the heart.

There was only supposed to be three in the warehouse but apparently, Lara had miscounted and now they were fighting ten. Three were already dead, four without heads, and the other three doing everything in their power to drain their blood. 

Lara’s back was smashed into the concrete by a vampire with its head still on. 

“An angel,” the vampire licked its lips, “I haven’t had one of you in years.”

“Well, you’ll have to wait a little longer,” Lara grunted, pushing her blade into its heart. Maybe she should’ve stayed upstairs playing Poker.

“Yahtzee!” Carter shouted in delight as the sound of a body hit the floor. Lara’s mouth quirked. Maybe not.

Pushing the dead body off herself, Lara kicked the next vampire’s legs out from under them, the headless body practically toppling onto her blade. The head that had been inching over to her suddenly went still as another body fell across the warehouse.

Lara stood up, shaking her head to get rid of the dizziness. There were only two vampires left, both with heads. She heard Carter run over to her, grinning in excitement as the two stalked closer.

“I got Blondie, you got Chad?” 

Lara nodded as the vampire, Chad Carter had called it (it honestly did look like a Chad), pounced. She avoided the teeth as it tumbled before lunging at her again. She blocked one of the swinging fists with her blade as another came swinging. She could hear Carter struggling with Blondie.

Ducking underneath the fist, she jabbed her blade into Chad’s stomach. The vampire stumbled back onto to get a blade through the heart.

She turned to see Carter get in a stab and groaned.

“Wrong side of the chest!”

“I realize that!” Carter yelped as Blondie shoved him down. 

Lara ran over and pulled the vampire away from the demon’s neck and Carter managed to stab it thankfully on the right side of the chest, the vampire falling limp onto the concrete floor.

“Need help up?” Lara smirked, offering a hand.

“Yeah, yeah. Keep laughing, it’s you who got us into this mess, to begin with,” Carter scowled as he was reluctantly helped up. 

He had a bloody nose that Lara made a note to check if it was broken later, but otherwise, he looked fine. Lara could feel some blood trickling down from the palms of her hands but she felt fine.

“Ready to leave?” She asked, looking at the corpses on the ground.

“Absolutely.”

As they left the warehouse, Lara shook her head. Carter was never gonna let go of this.


	2. Mirror of Fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lara and Carter take on a cursed mirror.

Carter leaned against a brick wall, tapping his foot impatiently. The wind blew chilly November air, reminding him that winter was soon. He never liked winter. It was always too cold and he never liked snow. The only good part was the icicles that you could pick off of the rooftops that he and his siblings used to try and eat until their fingers turned numb. The icicles almost always tasted like the wooden roof.

He was a young demon, really young. Most demons, especially the higher up ones, had been demons for thousands of years. For him, it had only been centuries. He never liked thinking about when he sold his soul, but it wasn’t in 2002, that's for sure. 

Sometimes he missed his family. His mom and dad loved him very much, even if they couldn’t afford all of the nice stuff the other kids had. His older brother was fun to play with and his older sister was fun to make fun of. Maybe, if he could go back, he would rethink his choice...

Carter shook his head, shivering slightly. There was no point dwelling on the past. Plus, he had Lara now, and that's all the family he needed. She was just like Alexa, even if her vessel looked nothing like Carter’s older sister.

“What’s taking her so long?” Carter growled, slouching into his hoodie.   
The frosty air bit at his fingers as he quickly shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking back and forth on his feet.

Finally, after what felt like ages standing outside the mirror shop, a loud wingbeat was heard and suddenly Lara was next to him, tugging at a jacket she looked like she had hastily put on.

“Ready to go?” She asked, twirling her blade between her fingers.

Carter’s eyes flickered to her blade before nodding, “I’ve been waiting here for at least twenty minutes, I’m ready.”

Lara smiled tightly. “Let’s go.”

Both were tense as they entered the mirror shop. They had been following the case for a while and had seen what the mirror, or more accurately the entity in the mirror, could do. The symptoms were simple: the victim would start coughing black ooze, then fall into a coma. Lara found the black ooze particularly gross considering it was sticky and touching it made it hold onto you like its life depended on it.

Lara had been able to look into the patient’s minds and had been none too pleased with the results. The mirror seemed to make them relive through past trauma and face their worst fears. Both Carter and Lara had seen enough to know that being infected by this mirror was practically a death sentence. 

The mirror shop was in pristine condition, the mirrors gleaming in the moonlight. The two walked through with care, Carter gripping his blade.

“What took you so long?” He finally asked.

“Had to do more research on cursed mirrors,” Lara replied easily.

“So you figure out how to kill the damn thing?”

“Carter.” The warning in Lara’s voice was obvious. Carter deflated a little, feeling guilty, but he had every right to be annoyed when the stupid mirror had left them scrambling. Every lead had been a dead-end and Carter was honestly sick of the hunt.

“Whatever,” Carter rolled his eyes and kept walking. 

He heard the angel reach into her book bag and pull out something. He blinked as he watched her turn a flashlight on. Huh, smart.

It only took a minute to find it. The old vintage aesthetic stuck out like a sore thumb, no wonder people were drawn to it. Carter swallowed nervously and gripped his blade harder. His fingers traced the edge of the mirror’s frame.

“Just stab it, right?”

Lara was tapping her own blade.

“Yes.”

Carter’s jaw tightened as he stabbed through the mirror. He stumbled back a little as the mirror cracked around his blade and black liquid spilled out. His blade instantly became coated in it and he frowned. He really liked that blade.

“No point, it’s stuck there.” Lara seemed to read his thoughts.

“What should we do with the mirror?”

“Humans can’t see or feel the liquid. We’ll just let the shopkeeper see the broken mirror and throw it away.”

Carter nodded and reluctantly walked towards the exit. The cold air slapped his face as he exited the warm shop, his breath frosting in front of him. 

“Let’s just fly home, I’m tired,” Carter muttered. Lara raised an eyebrow, she knew that Carter didn’t like flying, it always made him dizzy. But Carter was too tired to really complain.

He was tired of this hunt and he was tired of being cold. God, why was it so cold? He started shivering.

Lara sighed and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

Carter jolted as they suddenly landed in the motel room. He forgot how that felt. He shook his head and walked towards the bathroom.

“I’m gonna take a shower!” He said as Lara took off her shoes.

He didn’t wait to hear her response as he closed and locked the door before turning on the shower. He sat down on the toilet seat and waited for it to warm up.

He was glad that the hunt was over, but he felt like he could feel the black ooze still sticking to him. His stomach churned uncomfortably as he got undressed and hopped into the shower. The water pressure was too soft but he couldn’t find the effort to even think about complaining. 

Steam filled the bathroom as he got out, the hot water making his eyelids droop. He couldn’t wait to get in bed and sleep. 

Lara never understood sleeping that much. Neither of them needed it, but Carter liked sleeping and he got tired sometimes. Tired of his thoughts, tired of being nervous, tired of hunting, and sometimes tired of being a demon, being alive. He also got just plain regular tired, like he was now. He faintly remembered what it was like to be tired as a human, but that was a long time ago.

Putting on pajamas, he left the bathroom and flopped onto the bed.

“Sleeping day?” Lara asked a hint of amusement in her voice. Sometimes Carter slept, some nights he just laid in bed and stared at the ceiling, and some nights neither even tried to pretend to be asleep so they just went to the next destination.

Carter grumbled into the bed, the sheets blocking his voice. He was sure she got what he meant. 

He slowly crawled into bed the proper way as Lara turned the lights off. She didn’t to her bed, instead turning to a book she had on a desk in the corner, a lamp illuminating it. Carter couldn’t find himself bothered by the tiny light coming from the corner.

His eyes closed and he felt his breath even out.

Then, his eyes snapped open. 

Where was he?

Looking around, all he could see was a black abyss. The floor was the black liquid from the mirror that reached up to his ankles. He frowned, his brows furrowing as he tried to get out of the sludge. 

“I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” a little girl’s voice giggled from behind him. Carter paled, it couldn’t be. He whipped around and-

~~~

Lara tapped her pencil against the book, chewing on her lip. She heard Carter shift in the bed but her sight remained trained on the book in front of her.

It talked about haunted mirrors, how an entity possesses them, blah, blah, blah. What really caught her interest was what it said about how to get rid of it.

Shatter it.

She thought back to the mirror from their hunt. Had it shattered? She wouldn’t say that. Maybe cracked. Lara had expected the blade to fully shatter it, it was a blade made by angels after all. 

Turning her thoughts back to the book, she skipped a few lines.

When the mirror is truly broken, the people it has a hold over will be released.

Does that mean the people at the hospital are awake now? She should check. 

Lara put her pencil down and quickly flew to the hospital room that held one of the victims.

It held a teen boy, around fifteen years old. He had bought the mirror for a theatre performance before he had fallen into the coma. She frowned as he laid unmoving. Shouldn’t he be getting up by now?

Flying back to the motel, she fell onto her bed. Maybe a little sleep will help.

Except...that dripping noise was annoying. Did Carter forget to turn the shower all the way off? Lara sat up and tilted her head.

It was coming from inside the room. Did they spill something? Lara looked at Carter’s face hanging off the bed. Might be drool. She hadn’t seen Carter drool before but she never knew with the kid.

She got up and walked over, intending to just put his head back on a pillow. Instead, she stopped dead.

Black.

Black liquid. 

Oh my god. 

~~~

The lake was drowning him. He couldn’t breathe. The dress dragged him down. He was laughed at, he could hear her voice. Long hair.

~~~

Lara scrambled to the desk, frantically looking through the book. The mirror only infected people who touched it. Why did it infect Carter?!

They didn’t shatter it. Carter touched it.

The realization hit her like a truck. She had brushed off Carter touching the mirror earlier because she thought they had shattered it enough. Anybody who touched it fell into a coma.

Carter said he was tired.

“Fuck!” Lara rarely swore but at this point, her vessel’s heart was beating too fast as she panicked. She needed to shatter the mirror right now.

~~~

Laughter. Crying. Being told what to do. I don’t want to do that. Hellfire. Makeup.

~~~

The mirror shop looked much more threatening than before as Lara rushed inside, ignoring the banging of the door as she ran through the maze of mirrors.

~~~

Touching. Hands clammy. High-pitched voice. She, she, she, SHE.

~~~

The mirror stood there, mockingly. Black sludge bubbled from the crack, warm and sticky like blood. Lara shoved down the all too human urge to vomit as she looked around for something that would shatter the mirror.

~~~

Tears. Music blasting. Hounds barking. I don’t want to hurt her. She’s my friend. Too feminine.

~~~

A hammer sat on an antique desk in the corner. Most likely used to try and repair it. Lara quickly grabbed the hammer and turned towards the mirror. 

~~~ 

Control. Angel blade. Her mocking me. I thought you were family. Stop, stop, stop-

~~~

The glass shattered, flying from the harsh impact of the hammer against the mirror. 

Lara panted as she watched the ooze scream and bubble, heat hissing form the popping as it curled up. 

It smelled disgusting.

The angel shook her head, her throat dry. She had to check up on Carter.

When she got back to the motel, the demon was sitting on the bed, looking at the wall with a blank stare. She could see his too-pale skin and his hands trembling slightly. Wincing, she sat next to him.

He didn’t say anything, just continued to stare at the wall. She felt immensely guilty, she had told him that the blade would work and now he had gone through every bad thing to ever happen to him and his worst fears. 

Her wings twitched as she thought about how easy it would’ve been to peek. Carter, while an open person about a lot of things, was not open about his past. She could’ve seen all the things he had never told her about, information just above her grasp.

But she couldn’t, she wouldn’t. She wasn’t like that.

“How do you feel?” She asked gently, heart pained at the sight of her friend.

Carter looked at her with cold, hollow eyes, “fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *chanting*  
> ANGST ANGST ANGST ANGST


	3. Release the Hounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carter’s acting a little distant, but Lara can’t dwell on it much with a dog-wolf hunting the residents of a small town.

Lara narrowed her eyes as she studied the corpse. It was a twenty-year-old female who was spotless. Spotless as in, nobody could see what killed her. No damage to the skin or internal organs. It looked like she just dropped dead. No existing heart conditions, no history of seizures, no medical pills from a possible overdose.

But Lara could see the damage on a spiritual level. She could see just as easily as the spotless skin, the mauled throat from animal teeth, where her soul had been brutally ripped out from her body. 

She had been clearly killed by some animal, and that animal had been after her soul. The dog-like teeth marks were disgusting to look at. 

Lara frowned and put the cover back over the victim’s face, her stomach squeezing uneasily. The third victim in two weeks, some monster had obviously settled here and was making meals of the townsfolk.

Carter walked into the morgue from where he had been talking to the local ‘corpse-researcher’ (as he called them).

“Talked to the doc’, official death was listed as a heart attack.” Carter shoved his hands into his suit pockets. It was hard to pass him off as a fed, but he played the part well enough that most sheriffs just answer the questions. If not, Lara usually took over. 

“It wasn’t a heart attack,” Lara responded flatly. 

Carter rolled his eyes, but Lara could see him clench his jaw slightly. Something tugged at her chest but she forced herself to look back at the tarp-covered body. 

“You got any idea what it was?” Carter asked, his (currently invisible to humans) tail flicking back and forth in annoyance. Lara shook her head.

“No clue. The monster ate the victim's soul, which doesn’t exactly narrow down our list.”

“Well, at least we know that it isn’t a werewolf or a vampire.” Carter, for some reason, sounded slightly bitter. Lara frowned at his poor attitude.

“Anyways, anything else interesting?” Carter caught her eye briefly before quickly looking back to the corpse.

“No, not really,” Lara’s wings twitched, “besides the fact that it looked like an animal attacked them.”

Carter slumped and kicked at nothing on the ground before snapping straight.

“What do you mean! That narrows it down so much!”

Lara quirked a brow as Carter started pacing. At least he was...excited?

“See, there are only so many monsters in folklore that both eat souls and are animal-like. There’s Ammit the Devourer from Egyptian mythology, but he’s in the underworld and is unlikely to leave just to murder folk. There’s Death Capes who some people aren’t even sure to exist. Oh, there’s also the Crocotta.” 

“Since when were you a nerd?”

Carter flinched and shoved his hands back into his pockets like he was suddenly aware he had been waving them around while he was talking.

Lara looked back at the body before tilting her head towards the door, “we can look into this more at the motel.”

“Right,” Carter muttered.

Lara walked towards the door but paused briefly when she saw Carter not following her.

“You coming?”

Carter bit his lip and looked around, “no, I’m gonna talk around some more. See if anybody saw anything, y’know?”

The angel had the suspicion that maybe her friend just didn’t want to go back yet, but she pushed it down and settled on a weak smile.

“Sure, let me know what you find out.”

At least this way, she thought as she walked out or the morgue, she can fly to the motel. With a crack of her wings, she was suddenly back at the motel room where they had been staying for the past two days. She couldn’t help but think about how off Carter had been.

A week ago he had endured the whole cursed mirror thing and she expected him to brush it off like he normally did, but for some reason, he was still holding on. What did he experience while under the mirror’s influence that made him so jumpy? Every day she saw him drift away and have fast mood swings and every day she had to reason with herself to stop her from peeking into his memories to see what the Hell was going on.

He’s entitled to his privacy, she reminded herself. How would she feel if someone saw her deepest fears and traumas? She shuddered at the thought of Carter looking into her past. She trusted him with her life, but that was pushing the line, hard.

Straying away from her thoughts, Lara reached into her bag and pulled out her laptop. Setting it up on the small table the place had provided, she pulled up some research on the monsters Carter had mentioned.

First, Ammit the Devourer. Both a demoness and a goddess in Egyptian mythology, she was part lion, hippopotamus, and crocodile. Lived in the underworld and ate the hearts that Ma’at deemed impure. 

Carter was right with this one. Even if their underworld was like the Egyptian’s, Ammit wouldn’t leave the underworld. Considering that she ate the hearts the Ma’at deemed impure, they were probably joined to the hip wherever the Egyptian gods and goddesses were staying here in modern days. 

Next, the Death Capes. Searching them up provided almost no results besides Wikipedia sites for role-plays and anime. Lara summoned some mythology books and started pouring through the pages. Nothing. Guess they don’t exist after all.

Last, the Crocottas. They don’t come from any mythology but do have deep ties in Greece and Africa. Sometimes said to be a dog-wolf hybrid, others horse-like. They mimic the voices of their victims to lure them then eat their souls. Their diet consists of the formerly mentioned souls and sometimes dogs.

That last part made Lara pause. Weren’t there a lot of missing dogs recently? Thinking back, Lara remembers the deputy commenting on how a lot of townsfolk dogs went missing around the time the deaths happened.

The door’s lock clicked open and Carter stepped in, looking tired.

“Find anything?” Lara asked, twisting her body to look at him.

“Besides a bunch of stoners and drunks? Squat,” Carter snorted before scowling.

“Well, I’ve got good news. Found our monster, I think.”

Carter perked up before putting his keys down and walking over. He squinted at the site. 

“Crocotta?”

“Yep. What really put it together was the missing dogs in the area. My guess: recently moved in after being driven from its home in the forest and started chomping down on the residents.”

“Makes sense, know how to kill it?”

“Their spines are particularly weak. Stab it there with pretty much anything, and it’s dead.”

Carter nodded, then tilted his head slightly. “How are we gonna kill it?”

Lara grinned. Carter paled.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

~~~

Watching Carter call out for the monster by walking around the forest and occasionally saying “here man-eating monster, I’m just a meal on legs walkin’ around!” was hilarious, to say the least. Carter seemed to grow more frustrated as the minutes passed, kicking at nothing and toying with the aglets of his hoodie.

Lara twirled the angel blade in her hands, watching as Carter walked in circles.

Then, Carter froze. He looked around wildly, stumbling back a little bit. Lara frowned in concern.

“Lara, was that you calling me?” He shouted.

No, it wasn’t. But it did mean their bait was working. She couldn’t respond, though, in case that scared the Crocotta off.

Her lack of response seemed to make Carter antsy as he bounced on his feet, playing with his hoodie aglet more nervously now. 

A deep growl was heard throughout the forest as bushes rustled next to the demon.

“Oh, alright then,” Carter said weakly as he pulled his angel blade from his belt.

One.

Lara carefully positioned herself amongst the trees and foliage.

Two. 

A large dark paw stepped out from the bushes as Carter crouched down in anticipation.

Three. 

The Crocotta snarled threateningly as it got ready to pounce.

Now!

Lara shot forwards and just missed it by a millisecond as it pounced onto Carter. Both the hound and the demon went down, but Carter was quick to throw it off. It yelped as Carter managed to get in a score on its side before crouching down and leaping at him again. 

The demon scrambled to the side as Lara swerved behind it. Her blade pierced through it’s back as its snapping jaws hooked onto Carter’s arm.

“Shit!” Carter used the handle of his blade to hit the Crocotta’s face and Lara pushed her blade deeper into its spine.

The dog-wolf hybrid convulsed and let out a high pitched scream before flopping down onto the ground. Both hunters stood where they were, panting heavily.

Lara looked up at Carter’s arm to see it bleeding on the physical level but unscarred on the spiritual.

“We should probably patch that up.”

Carter shook his head, “my arm can wait. Let’s bury Cujo.”

Lara’s mouth twitched downward but resigned herself to helping her friend bury the monster.


	4. Plant Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carter stress-gardens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter.

It started simple at first, Lara almost missed it. She slowly put the book back on the shelf, staring at the green plant that had somehow made its way into their house. 

She had absolutely no clue why there was a cactus sitting on the nightstand she had put next to her bookshelf, and it was bothering her.

“Carter, why is there a cactus in my library?” She asked as she walked out of the room. 

“Our library.” Carter corrected. He was standing in the kitchen, leaning against the island, eating a granola bar. He had recently started eating them more and more, which Lara didn’t understand much. It was just a granola bar. She thought back to the time Carter had told her that his life was falling away faster than a Nature Valley granola bar.

“Yes, our library. There is a cactus in our library. Why is there a cactus in the library.”

“Why are you blaming me?”

Lara narrowed her eyes, “I didn’t put it there, so you must have. Why.”

“Geez, just thought that the library could use a little spice. I was tired of looking up and seeing only brown.”

“So you put a cactus in our library.”

“Yes.”

Lara shook her head and went back into her - their - library, staring suspiciously at the cactus.

~~~

“Carter? Carter.”

The demon’s head popped out from their bedroom. They had always shared a bedroom, the first time they moved in together Carter insisting they get a bunk bed or he was going to lose his shit. They had long since transitioned into two separate beds on opposite sides of the room, but they always shared a bedroom. They needed the extra room for their library and whenever somebody asked them if it was safe for two people of the opposite sex to sleep in the same room, Lara responded with the same thing every time.

“I’m asexual and I don’t think Carter knows how to be horny.”

She’s lying about the asexual part, but not about the Carter part. Carter always sputters and flushes bright red whenever she says that (without fail, it’s hilarious), but she’s not wrong so he normally doesn’t say anything else. 

“What’s shakin’?” He asked as he entered the living room.

“There is another plant in our house.”

Carter glanced at the Snake Plant sitting on the windowsill.

“It’s supposed the clear the air.”

Lara’s eye twitched.

“Why are you bringing plants into our house.”

“They’re relaxing to take care of,” Carter muttered and shifted. He’s not wearing his black hoodie. Carter always wears his black hoodie. But right now, he’s wearing a red dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Something’s wrong.

She doesn’t bring up his odd clothing choice as she turns around and turns on the TV.

~~~

“I’m too sober for this,” Lara proclaimed as she stared at the Bird’s Nest Fern sitting right underneath the bathroom window on the sink counter.

“You don’t drink,” Carter called from the other room.

“Maybe I should start.”

She rolled her eyes as Carter started laughing.

~~~

Finally, she caught Carter in the act.

“Put that down.”

Carter looked from the green intruder to her. 

“No.”

Lara crossed her arms.

“Carter, put that down.”

Carter clutched the Philodendron Green closer to his chest defensively.

“No. I’d rather eat it.”

Odd threat, but go off I guess, she thought to herself as Carter shuffled towards the top shelf next to the window. She had been saving that spot for a particularly good book but now it was filled with green.

~~~

Soon, their house was covered in plants. Carter spent at least two hours a day watering the plants and making sure they were getting enough sunlight.

“You do realize that as soon as we get a case, all of these plants are gonna die, right?” Lara asked one day. Carter stopped watering the Snake Plant and slowly puts the watering can down.

“Sequiera could look after them?” He suggested quietly.

“They’re just plants.”

“They’re more than that.”

“Carter, it’s a plant.” She stressed the word plant, annoyance bubbling up inside of her. Anxiously toying with his hoodie? Lara could handle that. Stress-eating? She didn’t understand it, but she wasn’t bothered by it. But planting? This was the last straw.

“What’s happening?” She snapped.

“What?” Carter whipped around to face her, confusion lining his face.

“You’ve been acting off for weeks ever since the mirror-“ Carter flinched- “and now you’re stressed out. You’ve stopped putting on your hoodie, you’re eating granola bars like you actually need to eat, and you’re stress-gardening. You don’t even like gardening!” Lara’s voice cracked at the end. She didn’t mean to come off rude, but she was worried about her friend.

Carter said nothing, only hanging his head in embarrassment, his fingers fidgeting against the potted plant. 

“I’m worried about you,” she said gently. Then, more quietly, she asked, “what did you see?”

The demon looked away, eyes flashing with guilt. What did he see? She was so close to ripping open his mind, privacy be damned.

Carter was quiet for a little bit before he finally spoke. His voice was quiet and shame laced it.

“I was drowning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I leave you guys on a cliffhanger? Yes. You’ll have to wait for the next chapter.


End file.
